Karen Uhlenbeck Receives 2007 AMS Steele Prize for a Seminal Contribution to Research

January 8, 2007

Providence, RI:

Karen Uhlenbeck of the University of Texas at Austin has received the 2007 AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for a Seminal Contribution to Research. Presented annually by the American Mathematical Society, the Steele Prize is one of the highest distinctions in mathematics. The prize was awarded on Saturday, January 6, 2007, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The prize citation honors Uhlenbeck "for her foundational contributions in analytic aspects of mathematical gauge theory" and makes specific mention of two of her seminal papers:

"Removable singularities in Yang-Mills fields", Communications in Mathematical Physics, 83 (1982), 11-29; and

"Connections with bounds on curvature", Communications in Mathematical Physics, 83 (1982), 31-42.

The theorems in these papers, and the techniques Uhlenbeck introduced to prove them, are the analytic foundation underlying the many subsequent applications of gauge theory to geometry and topology. Some of these applications are among the most important developments in twentieth century mathematics and constitute revolutionary advances in the field. More recently, ideas growing out of Uhlenbeck's work have yielded new insights in symplectic and contact geometry.

Uhlenbeck is one of the premier mathematicians of her generation. Since 1988 she has held the Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair in Mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1983 she received a MacArthur "genius" fellowship, and in 2000 she was awarded the National Medal of Science. She is a co-founder of the IAS/Park City Mathematics Institute and the program for Women and Mathematics in Princeton.

Find out more about AMS prizes at http://www.ams.org/prizes-awards.

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